Sunday, January 17, 2016

Ethnomarchantiology


Ethnomarchantiology: the study of the human use of liverworts. If this was a book, it would probably be very thin! I heard (no source, just word of mouth) that the early PA Dutch used to line their bread box with Marchantia to block a witch's spell that would keep the dough from rising. The little cup-like structures are called gemmae cups. During a rainfall, they disperse small discs that form new plants. This is a form of asexual reproduction. (Sketch done from a live model during a moss and liverwort workshop.)

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